Sergio Marchionne Is “Impressed” with What Elon Musk Has Done

Over the weekend, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) CEO Sergio Marchionne, who is not so subtly trying to attract a buyer for his already supersized auto giant, visited Silicon Valley to meet with tech experts (or techsperts, as the young’uns are calling ‘em) from Apple, Google, and—yes—Tesla.

Marchionne’s interest in meeting with Tesla CEO (and future president?) Elon Musk is a little surprising. It’s no secret that electric vehicles leave a poor taste in Marchionne’s mouth—or maybe that’s just the halitosis brought on by old age. The man even got up in front of people and said on record that he hopes you don’t buy the Fiat 500e. Why? Because every time he sells one, he takes a $14,000 bath.

“Screw the environment. I want more money.”

No, obviously, businesses do need to make money, but by investing in green technology now, it will only be cheaper and thus more sustainable to manufacture down the road.

Perhaps Marchionne has finally come to his senses; following his visit to Silicon Valley, he stated, “I’m incredibly impressed with what that kid has done,” meaning Musk. You know, the guy who builds only electric vehicles and takes no baths. (We’re talking money baths, by the way; Elon Musk most likely still bathes.)

A guy this fancy has to take baths, right?

It stands to reason that Marchionne might even be looking for a partnership with one of these tech companies to help build him green cars for his companies’ lineups. After all, Tesla already makes EVs, Apple has been testing out self-driving cars, and Google has been in the car research business for quite some time now.

We don’t have any actual indication that Marchionne would follow through with collaboration of this nature, but his willingness to merge with GM and Ford gives some credence to this theory.